Austin 311

This is not an app to report a power outage or needing the police to come or anything like that – it’s just for reporting things like debris in the road, dead animals, etc. Stuff you would normally call 311 about. If you have a power outage, the Austin Energy app is great for that. My only complaint is that one time I reported an unsafe new traffic pattern and they closed it as inspected no action required, but lo and behold two months later they fixed it. I wish I knew if they had planned to fix it before or they thought they didn’t have to fix it and then enough people complained and then they did. Just curious.

I’ve only had to use the app a few times but it’s such a simple way to make requests to the city. The latest storm knocked a tree into the street in front of my house; I made a request, submitted a pic and waited. I got an update to my request in the app a few hours later saying it had been forwarded to 911 and Public works; a few minutes later, an officer came to check it out. He made sure there wasn’t a safety issue and let us know Public Works would be out to take care of the tree ASAP. A couple of hours later the crew showed up and took care of the tree. It’s a little unbelievable how efficient the whole process was.

I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve reported anything to the city of Austin in the last 8 years I’ve been here. On the other hand, I’ve had to look up the bulk pickup schedule dozens of times on the very clunky website. Bring more features to this app please! Will left uninstalled for now.